Running & Reviews

Good grief, it's already February. Ugh. Anywho.

This morning, I headed to the gym and tried out a treadmill interval routine that boasted a 500 calorie burn. I'm still not counting calories these days, but I'm sure I burned that 500, if not a little more. It was tough, but it of course went by super fast (my favorite part about interval training) and I felt pretty damn refreshed afterward. Highly recommend! I'd also recommend browsing around the FitSugar website when you have some free time. They have a decent variety of interval workouts on various machines, as well as a lot of food/fitness info.

Quick follow up to my last post: I got a chance to try out my new workout DVDs this weekend.

Jari Love's Extremely Ripped 1000: Great DVD! I'm always hesitant to try new DVDs these days because they usually don't challenge me enough, but this one definitely exceeded my expectations (and made me sweat my ass off).

It's basically a bunch of circuits back-to-back and they all start with 3 minutes of cardio, followed by one minute of strength training, mostly with dumbbells. If you've done 30 Day Shred, it's kind of a similar format (and 3 times longer, haha). The hour routine can be split into two half hour sessions if you prefer. I liked that there wasn't any prolonged breaks in between circuits; Jari just keeps you moving along the whole time so your heart rate stays raised during the majority of the workout.

She has people working out with her in the back and they're all either doing beginner, intermediate or advanced versions of the moves the entire time. I thought this was especially awesome because it enabled me to keep up, instead of getting over/underwhelmed and turning off the DVD. I alternated between intermediate and advanced for a nice challenge.

I did the full hour and just when I thought it was over, she closes with a push-up and ab routine. I definitely groaned when that came up, but I suffered through it anyway (I think it was about 5 minutes or so).

All in all, this one was definitely worth the money. It forces me to get a good amount of strength training in, but also has enough cardio to keep me sweating on the days I don't feel like running or going to the gym for the elliptical or incline training.

So if you are, dare I say it, bored with the Jillian Michaels' DVDs and want a good gym substitute, this is next best thing (in my opinion, of course).

Weight Loss Cardio Kick: I don't have a ton to say about this one... Overall, I liked it, but it definitely didn't bring on as much sweat as I had hoped.

It did fulfill my craving for kick-boxing though. As I mentioned before, I was disappointed with the last few Tae Bo DVDs I got, so it was nice to try something different.

This DVD also works in a bit of strength training with dumbbells as well, so I'll definitely be doing it again. I think I'll just save it for days where I just want to do a fun light-to-moderate workout, versus busting my ass doing something at a higher intensity.


That's about all for now. I will quickly note that Jillian Michaels has a new yoga DVD coming out soon!



I've got it baaaad for this woman, so of course I will be getting it. I totally laughed at the thought of her teaching yoga because it doesn't seem like it would be relaxing at all, but I guess we'll see.